An innovative clothing brand from Holland wants to change the way we label and talk about the size of our bodies. The first step in making such a huge cultural shift? Do away with ‘small’, ‘medium’ and ‘large’ and replace them with ‘beautiful’, ‘amazing’ and ‘fabulous’. Sounds great in theory, but will these new labels really make a positive difference?

According to the Wall blog, Belaqise is taking huge strides to make a splash in the world of fashion. Not only does Founder Ahmed Mahla want to make the brand’s clothes ‘feminist without being trashy’ and ‘luxurious without being loud’, he also wants to change the way other brands and stores define women’s bodies with a new measurement system, called Sheyp. (Which we presume is some nifty word play on ‘shape’, but we can’t be certain.)

Sheyp introduces super positive vocabulary like ‘beautiful’ instead of ‘small’ and ‘fabulous’ instead of ‘large’, as well as a new measuring system that scans every little bit of a woman’s body instead of getting her to guess-timate her hip, waist and bust measurements.

So does it actually work? Well, according to the Wall the brand has revealed that there’s been a 30% decline in the number of returns, because customers are finding clothes that actually fit.

The positive adjectives used in place of standard sizes is an interesting move, but we’re not sure whether it’s also just a tad condescending. After all, as a grown woman I should surely be able to accept that my clothing size is ‘small’ or ‘large’ without feeling the need to sugar coat it?

Are you ready to replace your size with OTT words instead? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

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Becca is passionate about health, fitness and wellbeing. She’s particularly interested in wearable technology, how our mobiles can help us to get fitter and ways to introduce mindfulness and meditation into our busy working lives. As a northerner living in London, she loves exploring the city, going to the cinema at every possible opportunity and Instagramming everything that crosses her path.